


Friends & Family

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: Mirror [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Casual Racism, Defiance, Family Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Institutional Racism, Junior High, Middle School, Pre-Iron Man 1, Racism, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, Self-Defence, Smart Kid Problems, self-care, weariness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 23:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18158378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: Dinah had reared back to slap Emma before she had even half the words put together.  She stood over the other girl, fists clenched tight by her sides.  “Don’t you ever,evertalk about my mom.  You don’t know how smart she is or hard she works or everything she puts up withevery dayso don’t talk about things your stupid white-girl with everything handed to you on a plate doesn’t know anything about!”And then she steps back and walks away.  To the bathroom.  Where she’s found by the hall monitor, sitting in the last stall, crying, when the woman is sent in to find her.





	Friends & Family

**Author's Note:**

> Tony doesn't figure directly into this story at all. I highly, _highly_ recommend reading the previous stories in this series (especially "Sweeter..." and "If You Were Here"), otherwise you'll lose the weight of this one.
> 
> If you've ever read _Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry_ by Mildred D. Taylor, you'll know why it's in the tags. If you've never read _Roll of Thunder..._ you need to especially if you've ever read _To Kill a Mockingbird_.

**11-12 – Friends and Family**

Dinah doesn’t get into fights here the way she did at her old school. She’s on the cusp of her junior year and only had to slap a snooty white girl once. Luckily it had happened in an out of the way corner of the ancient school building, not that Dinah had cared at the time. Her temper was as hot and short as it ever was, but she’d _wanted_ to come to this school. She and her mother had made a deal: if she stopped fighting, she could not only stay at this special gifted and talented school, but she could travel to and from home by herself. Dinah knows she’s on the short side (thanks average-height parents); she’s used to people assuming she’s younger than she is. It’s only worse when they find out that she’s been skipped.

She also knows she’s faster and stronger than people think.

She also knows she’s got a chip on her shoulder, but she doesn’t know what to do about it. It’s like a big ugly thing that lives somewhere between her shoulder blades and her chest cavity, that presses on both when she’s angry. And people are so _stupid_. She can mostly deal with people being slower than she is. As much as she loves, desperately loves, her family she also recognizes that she and her mother are quicker than they are…and they’re not slouches. She recognizes that her mother is faster than she is. There’s nothing wrong with someone not knowing everything or not being able to catch on to things as fast as other people. But she can’t stand it when people said stupid things like they knew what they were talking about, and like they were talking about it to a ten year old.

No one was better than her just because they said so, whether they used those words or not.

She might be younger than the other girls, but her aunt was only ten years older than she was, and Dinah was a careful observer of the world around her. If other people would just _pay attention_ then half the stuff she said wouldn’t sound so special. They would know it already, too.

So she knows exactly what those sideways looks from the Emmas mean. (There are three Emmas in her homeroom, maybe five total in their year, but it’s her three that rule the cool girl roost. This might be why she likes _Heathers_ so much when she discovers it later in life.) And the questions they ask…

“Oh…how was Summer school? I’ve never been.”

_Me neither._

“So have you been left back?”

_Skipped. But my mom was skipped twice so I guess it’s like being left back._

“Did you get into a lot of fights in your old school? I heard that happens a lot…”

_Heard what happens a lot? Me getting into fights or fights happening where I’m from? Because I did. Which is why I came here. So I could stop being bored._

“What do your parents do? They have jobs, right?”

_Of course._

“Does your dad, like, work in construction or as a janitor or something?”

 _No idea…_ (If she had known then the kind of money a construction worker brought home, she probably would have actually answered the question, even if it was a lie.)

“Your mom must be really good at cleaning.”

_Total neat freak, but not for the reasons you think._

“So are you going to go to college?

So not subtle. But this one she answers. “Yup.”

Which surprises Emma T and her smirky faced clique. “Community college?”

“MIT. Like my parents.”

It takes two days for Emma T to confront her on the back stairs of the stairwell at the far end of their homeroom floor. Dinah hadn’t realized that her habits were that well known until that moment, and vowed to change them as soon as _this_ was over.

They’re about the same height, but Emma is still boyishly slender this close to graduating while Dinah is starting to fill out. Emma gets within inches of her, though. “You’re a liar. Admit it, you never went to MIT.”

Dinah quirks an eyebrow. “Seeing as how we’re both in the same 7th grade homeroom, I guess I’ll have to confess.” Her heart is going a hundred miles in her chest, adrenaline making her cheeks flush, but she forcibly resists her temper and how good it feels to just let go.

Emma turns red, too, but from embarrassment. “You know what I mean.”

“Um, no. I don’t actually.”

“Your parents, you little liar,” she says, poking Dinah in the chest.

Dinah steps back. “Don’t touch me.”

“Or what? You’re just a liar and everyone knows it. There’s no way—“ she pokes Dinah again “--your parents went to MIT.”

Dinah grabs the offending finger and forcibly pushes and twists it away from her. She wants to pull the girl’s swinging ponytail and drag her down to the ground with it so she can stomp on her stomach. Instead she says, “Leave me alone,” and turns away. She’ll just wait until next period to go pee.

“Don’t touch me! You dirty liar! I’m going to tell everyone—“

Dinah whirls around. “Tell them what?”

Emma cringes back at first, but something eggs her on. She steps forward. “That your stupid mother probably doesn’t even have her high school diplo—“

Dinah had reared back to slap Emma before she had even half the words put together. She stood over the other girl, who had overbalanced and fallen, fists clenched tight by her sides. “Don’t you ever, _ever_ talk about my mom. You don’t know how smart she is or hard she works or everything she puts up with _every day_ so don’t talk about things your stupid white-girl with everything handed to you on a plate doesn’t know anything about!”

And then she steps back and walks away. To the bathroom. Where she’s found by the hall monitor, sitting in the last stall, crying, when the woman is sent in to find her.

* * *

 

The next year, Emma T’s hair is more brown than blond. Her wardrobe is more grunge than prep. Her face is more sad than smirk. And the other Emmas—perky, blond and only 13 years old—shun this stranger in their midst.

Dinah never finds out what happened. Sometime around her twentieth birthday she remembers how changed Emma was their last year of junior high and realizes she should have felt bad for her all along.

 

Fin[ite]


End file.
